Remodel Update

25 August 2015

So we're about a week away from moving. Knock. On. Refinished Wood.

The floors are almost done, and the walls are closed up, and Jacob's buying appliances and putting in the cabinets over the next few days.

We will move in before the trim is on, before the upper cabinets are in, and before we've even ordered countertops. We haven't touched the bathroom. The tub literally has eight dead roaches in it right now. While we will address the dead roach situation, we won't update the bathroom until after we add a second bathroom sometime in the next six months.

We've blitzed the first stage of this remodel. We have about eight reasons - financial, familial, physiological - for doing it all so quickly, but it makes me nervous that we're not giving enough time to the decision making process. I've had to pick wood stains via texted photo in the grocery store parking lot while two little people screeched through the Little Einsteins theme song in their car seats.

So my anxiety is probably warranted. I'm already worried that we framed the open doorway between the living room and the kitchen too small, and that the new kitchen island won't look quite right.

But in the interest of optimism. Here are some things that are going right.

#1 The A/C works.

We can't get the furnace to light and the water heater is also a question mark, but on the scale of 1 to 100 degrees in Houston in August, I think we came out ahead on this one.

#2 The front windows.

It was Saturday and Jacob needed to frame the windows in before the drywallers were coming...on Sunday.

So we thought about buying generically sized vinyl windows from Lowes, but these would certainly clash with the front windows we'd decided to keep.

We could order cu$tom window$, but besides the hefty price tag, this would have us moving in with literal garbage bags for windows while we waited several weeks for them to come in.

So we hit up Houston Historic Salvage knowing that the likelihood of them having what we needed was really really low. But we lucked out. Though not new, we found some super high quality windows that would work for the space. New windows on the left. Old windows on the right.
Here's another after we'd replaced all the front windows and the drywall started to go up. This was about ten days (two lifetimes) ago. 
And here's me sweeping up the puzzle we used to entertain the kids while buying the windows.  
Nothing like a toddler and a precocious four year old at a salvage yard: strips of trim with exposed nails jutting out into the aisles, panes of glass leaning against door frames, vintage pedestal sinks teetering at every corner.

#3 The Floors

The floors in the entire house needed refinishing and the parquet flooring in the living room had to be replaced entirely. Here's what they looked like before.
Some parts were worse than others:
And here they are now.
I love them. The pic doesn't do them justice. The wood is red oak and we used a "Country White" stain on them. There's enough variation in the color that they should be pretty graceful when it comes to sweeping, but they are light and lovely.

Here's the kitchen as of yesterday morning.
Jacob is plugging away at it as I type, so maybe we'll have some cabinets by the time we move. Or maybe we'll eat cereal off of moving boxes and become real friendly with the neighborhood's taco trucks.

Now I'm off to scour the net for the least offensive ceiling fans with light fixtures I can find. (Tips welcome!)

23 comments :

  1. Have you been contacted by HGTV yet to have your own show? Bc y'all are like home reno celebs to me!! Keep up the good work!

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    1. Ha! I confess that I've never watched a single show on HGTV. I probably should though bc of how useful it would be! I've actually started following some remodeling blogs only just recently bc I have no idea how to document this kind of thing well. I type out the story of a room and I'm like boring boring boring, and then it hides in my drafts for eternity. #bloggerfail

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  2. I was about to say the same thing! TV show so I can watch the magic, please.

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  3. The cheapest/nicest-looking fans w/lights I found were at Lowe's for line, $70/each if you bought a 3-pack. They also had them for $100/each with remotes :)

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    1. hmmm. remotes for my ceiling fans. I would majorly turn my nose up at that generally, but in these last 2.5 weeks of pregnancy, I want a remote for everything.

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    2. No remotes! My mom's house has lots of fans with remotes and the batteries die, the remotes get lost, and then you end up swearing a lot more than you would have if you had just gotten up and pulled the cord.

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  4. Love! (and have a taco for me please!)

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  5. Love the update :) I can certainly relate to entertaining a baby in Home Depot/ Habitat ReStore/ on Craigslist runs/ in the midst of construction, but I only have one child so far so I have lots of respect!

    I believe this is the ceiling fan we have 3 of (I think it was on sale for $50 when we bought?) and we are very pleased. Although our decision was admittedly based 90% on price and 10% degree of offensiveness..
    http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Brookhurst-52-in-Indoor-Brushed-Nickel-Ceiling-Fan-YG268-BN/205316899

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    1. Oh, thanks for the link! I feel like the decision might as well be financial because the aesthetic situation is pretty bleak :-/

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  6. You are seriously the queen right now. I am so impressed by you and feeling you very, very much. I feel like every serious home decision has had to be made in grocery store parking lots with screaming... for some... damn... reason. But the windows are really, really gorgeous. Heaven smiled!

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    1. Thank you thank you! Heaven did smile on us at Houston Salvage! I felt so light for the rest of the day...and that's figuratively (and literally) not the case these days!

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  7. Great update! LOVE the floors and I'm sure everything else will turn out beautifully too. Best to you all as you scurry to get as much ready as possible before the move!

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    1. Thanks, Julie!!! I'm not scurrying so much as...waddling...but we're hanging in there!

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  8. I thought it was traumatic just getting ready to switch bedrooms right before a new baby will arrive. I cannot. even. imagine. going through renovations and a move. Rhodes = SuperFamily. And those windows and floors look awesome!!

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    1. Also - we've been slowly replacing the gross old ceiling fans at our house, and mostly we've ended up with things similar to this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-Southwind-52-in-Brushed-Nickel-Ceiling-Fan-52379/203260908

      I like the slightly rounded/tapered blades instead of straight ones.

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  9. You're amazing! And I truly love the floors, they look fab. xx

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  10. Congrats on the house! New commenter here :) Does the house have existing ceiling fans that you could use and just swap the light kits out? I found some cute (to me, at least) light kits, but they are a bit pricy given the fact that they do not include the fan.

    http://www.wayfair.com/Quorum-3-Light-Fabric-Drum-Ceiling-Fan-Light-Kit-QUF5011.html

    http://www.wayfair.com/Fanimation-3-Light-Ceiling-Fan-Light-Kit-LK113WH-KW3143.html

    Hope you find a solution quickly. Can't wait to see more pics!
    Larkin

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    1. The old fans were shot, so we have to replace the whole kaboodle, but the lights are harder for me than the blades. I should probably just angle towards blades that I like regardless of how much I dislike the lights, and we can update the light kit independently later on. Thanks for the links!!!!

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  11. You are so inspiring. Truly.

    And I LOVE the floors. And really, kitchen cabinets/counters are totally overrated. When I was a kid, my family moved into a house with neither (my dad was a contractor, so working on it nights/weekends). The only sink we had was in the laundry room and we had old blankets nailed up as bedroom "doors". Builds character. And you're totally wanting to take on character building experiences right now, right? Cause you've got nothing else going on? 😉

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  12. I think yall need your own tv show for this remodel :)

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  13. http://m.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-Glendale-52-in-Brushed-Nickel-Ceiling-Fan-AG524-BN/204175445/
    I've had this one in our master for about 3 weeks and it's changed my life. Not my favorite light fixtures but it's dead silent, doesn't wobble and looks pretty good in the mahogany option. Oh yeah, and it cools our room the HECK down and has like a million 4-5 star reviews :)

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  14. I was waiting for an update! Those floors are gorgeous!! As far as ceiling fans, you can always go the route of getting plain ones without a light kit (you can find them for $50-70) and buying a super cool light kit! It'll end up being just as much or cheaper than buying a plain jane fan!

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